


Get it Back

by snowshus



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Getting Back Together, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 12:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20191948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Baralai knows he can't have what they had back.





	Get it Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Welsper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welsper/gifts).

The night is already well on its way to being morning but the party has not even begun to wind down. Below the temple Bevelle is still glowing with brightly colored lanterns and disparate strains of music drift up through the air. Baralai isn’t sure if the heady floating feeling that’s wrapped itself around him is the effects of too much wine or the thrilling promise of a new day, a new age - one of healing. One by one, little by little, they’ll stitch up the old wounds that have been left to fester in Spira. Ghosts and fiends left to linger too long will finally be granted rest. 

The old wounds in him are healing too. The ancient anger that fed off of and into his own far more recent bitterness is gone, excised by the power of love and Baralai can feel his own anger fading with it. Not gone - not yet - but calming. Revenge and hate no longer occupy his every thought. It’s helped along the way by Nooj across from him and Gippal next to him, a warm line pressed to his side, keeping their wine glasses full. Gippal’s hands never straying far from the place they’ve claimed draped across Baralai’s shoulder. 

Baralai is not a fool, he knows they can never go back to the way they were before. Whatever they may or may not have been stumbling towards all those years ago is a closed book. It’s been years and Baralai would have to be blind not to see the affection between Gippal and Rikku. If things had been different, if Shuyen and the cave had never happened, if the crimson squad was real there may have been a chance for them. But it’s been years. Baralai can’t expect Gippal to have waited for something that hadn’t even properly begun.

None of this careful reasoning explains why he’s letting Gippal lean in close as they stumble drunkenly down the hall towards the bedrooms. A poorly placed step send them both stumbling into the wall. Gippal’s face buries in Baralai’s hair and his hands slide down to his waist as he whispers “do you want to, just once more, for old times sake.”

Baralai doesn’t mention that they hadn’t actually gotten that far in the old times, had never gotten past those few awkward stolen kisses when no else was around. He just nods, his own hands twisting in Gippal’s tunic and pulling him closer.

When Baralai wakes Gippal is still there, warm and heavy and beautiful in Baralai’s bed. 

“It still counts as one time if we haven’t gotten out of bed yet,” Gippal insists biting at the skin below Baralai’s ear. Baralai gives in without even the thought of a fight and the late morning turns to early afternoon before Gippal finally rolls out of the bed to gather his clothes. He moves slowly, keeps coming back to the bed to steal another kiss and he has to start over with the whole process of getting dressed more than once but eventually he dressed and standing in the door about to walk out of Baralai’s life again, though less permanent than the last time.

“So I guess I’m going back to Djose.” Gippal’s knuckles press into the door frame. “They could probably use my help there.” He glances up at Baralai. “So I guess that’s where I should be, until my help is needed somewhere else.” He waits at the door for a moment.

“Well, I’ll see you next time you need to come to Bevelle, I guess,” Baralai says.

“Okay, I guess I’ll see you around,” Gippal knocks his fist lightly against the frame and finally leaves.

Baralai doesn’t see him again for a month. The excavations into the temple reveal another old machina weapon. It is huge and terrifying and the evil intent that radiates off it is palpable. So Baralai calls Gippal and Nooj and Yuna, just to be safe. The goal is first to determine its purpose and then if needed take it apart.

At the end of the first day Gippal comes into his room with a bottle of wine and they drink and talk and laugh until it’s long past the time every decent man is in bed. The weight of rebuilding is suddenly lighter and the darkness that had seemed to crawl over them in the presence of the old machina dissipates. It’s so good to have his friend back. Baralai hasn’t laughed much since they went their separate ways. No one has ever been quite able to slip under Baralai’s skin like Gippal. No one else can get him laugh, no else can make him want to cry, no one else makes him give in to stupid thoughtless wants as easily as Gippal. Fingers dig into his hair when they kiss and he can’t even imagine wanting to stop.

They were never really anything. Baralai reminds himself often. They were at best the idea of something and whatever chance Baralai may have had for more than this is gone. He still lets Gippal spend every night of his short stay in Baralai’s bed. 

They are lucky and the machina never wakes, never moves, never does more than exude that awful dark feeling and it is so easily chased away by Gippal’s smile that it could hardly be a threat. They are able to disassemble it and destroy it without incident.

“So, we’re done, unless there was something else you needed? Another machine? Or something?” Gippal asks, packing up his tools. 

“No, that was all.” Baralai assures him, “I’ll let everyone know if anything else comes up.”

“Okay,” Gippal nods. “I guess I’m going, if you don’t need me to stay?”

“Thank you for your help.” Baralai holds out a hand. 

Gippal looks at his hand for a moment before smiling widely, “Just doing my part for Spira.”

The next time they see each other it is on Gippal’s homeground for once. Baralai has a meeting with Nooj, and it seemed wise to spend the night at Djose before making the journey through the pass so late. If that feels like an excuse just to spend more time with Gippal that is because it is. It’s a dangerous game Baralai has decided to play with his heart. It’s stupid, certainly. The things Baralai truly wants, and has always wanted, doesn’t quite line up with what Gippal is offering with his seductive promises of just one more night. It’s not bad though and Baralai will take as much as he can before Rikku lays her claim. 

“You should stop here on your way back as well,” Gippal offers. “Stay a bit even, there’s lots of old Yevonites who would like to have someone like you to talk to.” 

“I can’t.” Baralai shakes his head. “I have get back to Bevelle.”

“Yeah, I guess you do,” Gippal sighs and walks back into the temple.

He doesn’t see Gippal again until the blitzball tournament in Luca. It feels different. Gippal doesn’t come seek him out, doesn’t come up with some excuse to entice Baralai to his room where it would be easy to fall into bed again. So Baralai finds himself making the offer, desperate not to lose what he has just yet. 

He has Gippal against the wall as soon as the door is shut. The kiss is deep and hard and desperate for a minute before Gippal pulls back, eyes closed his hands tight around Baralai’s shoulders.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I should never have-.” Gippal shakes his head. “I can’t do this anymore.” He gently pushes Baralai away and walks out.

Just like that it’s ended, as Baralai always knew it must. He doesn’t fight it, promised himself he wouldn’t and he has always kept his promises. Things will return to the way they were meant to be, just friends. 

Gippal doesn’t come back to Bevelle for a long time after that. He doesn’t even come for Baralai increasingly rediulous requests for the Machine faction to come look at some machina that truth be told he could identify and take apart himself. He just keeps hoping Gippal will come. He misses his friend. 

Gippal never comes, always sending someone else. It isn’t until there’s another big political meeting that Baralai finally sees him again. Nooj is there along with representatives of the the Guado, Ronso, and Hypello. Cid has come as a represenative of the Al-Bhed in the new Home and Gippal can’t miss it without risking the Machine Faction and the Al-Bhed diaspora's interests being lost to those of Home. 

It is clear right away that things are different. Gippal now avoids Baralai as much as possible. He sits across the room when they must be in the room together and never makes eye contact. When the three of them sit down to eat at the end of the day he always makes sure Nooj is always between them. 

Baralai knew it was a mistake to start sleeping together. He knew he’d end up with his heart broken. He didn’t think it would be like this. He didn’t think he would lose Gippal’s friendship along with everything else. He doesn’t even know what he did wrong. He never asked for anything that wasn’t given, never let slip his wishes. He was good. Whatever he did, he needs to fix it. He can’t go back to those years without even having Gippal as a friend. He can’t. 

He finds Gippal in the square showing off one of the machine toys he always carries to some of the local children. Machines are still hard to come by here in the center of Yevon’s power. So the children all stare is wonder as the little metal bird flaps up into the air to fly around in a few circles before fluttering back to the ground. Gippal gives to the oldest child with instructions and they all run off with their new toy. 

“Hey can we talk?” Baralai approaches hesitently. 

“Sure,” Gippal says, without looking at him.

“I wanted to apologize,” Baralai says sitting down. “For whatever I did. I didn’t mean to offend and I was hoping we could go back to being friends.”

“You didn’t do anything.” Gippal shakes his head, picking up a pebble and tossing it into one of the fountains. “This one is on me. I was the idiot who thought I could make you love me again by sleeping with you. Which when I say it out loud sounds even more dumb then I realized before.”

Baralai is many things: traditional, cautious, unobservant, apparently, but whatever else he might be he has never been slow. He can get on board pretty quickly even if cart he’s boarding feels like it came out of nowhere and makes no sense with how he thought the world was working. He isn’t going to let it get away, not again.

“It was pretty dumb.” Baralai agrees, “You of all people should know words would have worked much better on me.”

“Never was good at that. You and Nooj, you both always had a way of always saying the right thing to get people to do whatever you wanted.”

“I’m not really, not at getting what I really want anyways. Just getting as much as I think I can get the other person to give. No point in asking what you want if you’re sure the answer will be no.” Baralai clarifies, “though maybe I should give it a try. Do you want to come home with me, and stay the night and maybe the next night too?”

“I want to stay every night,” Gippal confesses finally looking at Baralai.

“I think that can be arranged.” Baralai says linking their hands together, “I don’t know if you noticed but I suddenly found myself in need of the Al-bhed machine expertise nearly every week lately. It would be best if you stayed to help us, indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely sounds nice,” Gippal agrees with a smile.


End file.
